Black Rain

The group fell into utter silence, barely breathing, their eyes straining into the dark.

“What if it’s Susan?” McCarter asked. They had tried to reach her on the radio several times since entering the cave, but to no avail. “What if there was a cave-in and she’s trapped and trying to signal us? Avalanche victims are found like that sometimes.”

Hawker listened as the sounds were heard once again. “It’s not her,” he said.

“Are you sure?” McCarter asked. “It could—”

“The sounds are overlapping,” Hawker said. “There’s more than one source.”

From out of the darkness the scraping noise whispered to them, soft but unmistakable now: click, click, scrape, scrape

.

“Where the hell is it coming from?” Danielle asked, her eyes darting back and forth.

It was a fair question. With the strange acoustics of the cave, the noise seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. Click, click … scrape, scrape, click, click.

To Hawker’s left, Danielle and McCarter struggled to keep still. He ignored them, grimly sweeping his field of view. He knew Verhoven would be doing the same, and that, armed and waiting with their backs pressed to the wall, they were in a good position. Whatever was out there, stalking them, crawling from the edge of the lake or moving toward them from the farther depths of the cave, it would have to cross the open ground before it could strike.

“Stay against the wall,” he whispered. “Whatever happens, stay back against the wall and out of our way.”

Click, click, scrape, scrape. Louder this time, closer.

Danielle and McCarter pressed into the stone.

Hawker squinted into the darkness, waving the light around. To the right side—his side—the plaza ran for sixty feet before the jagged teeth of the cave took over once again. Beyond that, the cave opened up and a long finger of the lake appeared to stretch into the rocky formations beyond. That area offered the only real cover for anything approaching them, but a near-constant watch had caught nothing. “On your side, Pik.”

Verhoven shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

Click, click.

“Has to be.”

Verhoven bristled. “I’m telling you, there’s nothing over here.”

The hollow scraping sound reached them once again, slower and muted. And then there was only silence, more dreaded before long than the sounds that had come before it.

In that lingering quiet they waited, straining for any sign of danger, listening for the faintest sound.

But they saw nothing and heard nothing; there was no movement, no clicking, only the pounding of their hearts, the rhythmic dripping of water in the distance and the unearthly feeling of time standing on end.

The stone floor glistened with moisture and the heavy sulfur fumes lingered in the air, but nothing in the cave was moving.

Hawker scanned to the left, to make sure Verhoven hadn’t missed anything, and then back to the right. What the hell are we missing?

As this question ran through his head, a minuscule flash caught the corner of his eye: a speck of dust falling through the beam of Danielle’s flashlight, flaring incandescently as it passed, like a microscopic shooting star. Only now did he realize their folly. He looked up.

“Move!”

He grabbed Danielle and slung her out of the way as a shadow dropped from the ceiling fifty feet above. The animal hit the ground where she’d been standing, slashing the back of her calf with the sweep of its claws even as Hawker pulled her away. The group scattered, beams of light swaying wildly in the darkness as claws and teeth flashed and strings of vile saliva swung through the air.

The animal spun and lunged at McCarter.

A slug from Verhoven’s shotgun sent it reeling across the floor.

“Look out!” McCarter shouted.

A second beast had dropped in behind Verhoven. As it launched itself toward his back, flashes erupted from the barrel of Hawker’s rifle, staccato bursts lighting the cave in a strobelike effect. The bullets tore into the beast as it flew through the air and slammed down on Verhoven.

He tumbled forward as Hawker fired again. The animal shrieked and jumped. And as McCarter’s light hit its eyes, the thing hissed, spitting at him and shooting off into the darkness with a trail of bullets chasing it.

The beams of light crisscrossed in the dark. The sounds of the animals scurrying and hissing competed with the heavy footsteps of the men, shouts of warning and the booming sound of gunfire echoing through the chamber.